Once Was Lost
by The Sugarfaerie
Summary: Natasha has not always belonged, and Clint has not always been found.


As always, nothing you see here is mine.

* * *

******Once Was Lost**

She loses her virginity at fourteen, has her first kiss at fifteen and lost her mind long before that. To her handlers she is Natalia, to her victims the Black Widow and to the Red Room she is a number. To her sisters and the 'mothers' who wipe the blood off her chin at night she is Natasha.

Galina sleeps in the cell next to hers and Natasha can hear her breathe at night. It's winter and Natasha is cold even under the extra blanket they gave her as a reward for eliminating a man in a train car. Galina must be freezing. Galina needs to work on her aim.

Most of the time Natasha works alone, but this mission requires two agents and Galina is sent along with her. Galina may be a lousy shot but when it comes to extracting information she is superb, almost Natasha's equal. She sweet talks the information they need from an unsuspecting government official in a glittering ballroom while Natasha shivers behind her rifle outside. Galina has the information within an hour and Natasha tells herself she would have been faster.

Later they hide in a rundown safe house to wait for their handlers to retrieve them. There is a small electric heater in the corner of the room and Natasha crouches next to it, letting the heat soak into her. Galina comes down to sit next to her, wearing a heavy black coat over the green silk ball gown the Red Room dressed her in to infiltrate the party.

She hands Natasha a bottle of schnapps that she must have stolen from the ballroom and after a moment's hesitation Natasha accepts it, taking a long sip before passing it back.

The bottle empties itself between them and their handlers haven't come for them yet, and it's warm, and Natasha is leaning against Galina's shoulder while Galina makes a joke, long black hair escaping from her bun and tickling Natasha's nose. Natasha wishes she could take time and freeze it so that everything is warmth and jokes and Galina's soft laugh, and she raises her head and presses her lips to Galina's mouth, hoping to make that laugh her own.

* * *

Natasha offers her body to him once.

Two nights after Clint takes her back to S.H.I.E.L.D he comes out of the shower and she's waiting naked in his bed, hair lying in perfect curls across her shoulder like a 1940s screen siren, and he doesn't think to question how she got inside his room or how she so accurately anticipated his type. Clint stands stock-still; the towel around his waist suddenly very rough against his skin, and all he can manage is an inarticulate "huh."

Wordlessly Natasha slides out from under the covers and saunters towards him, hips swaying and ruby lips gleaming like blood.

She's magnificent, but he already knew that.

"Romanoff," he says carefully. "What the fuck are you doing?"

She cocks her head, eyebrow raised. "I would've thought that was obvious, Agent Barton." Her lips curve and everyone who has seen that smile ended up dead. The Black Widow is on the hunt.

Clint takes a deep gulp of air and tries to ignore his body's reactions to hers. "I'm not that cheap a date."

Natasha rocks on the balls of her feet and he can see her changing attacks. "I wanted to thank you," she says, and her voice is a little bit softer, her face a little more vulnerable. The femme fatale melts before his eyes into a little girl with an effortlessness that takes his breath away.

Damn, she's good.

She steps up to him, hands in front of her like she's unsure how to continue but close enough that the tips of her fingers brush his abdomen. "Don't you want me?" she asks, so sincere it could break a heart.

One of Natasha's hand comes up to rest on his shoulder while the other skims across his torso and around to his back, and Clint shuts his eyes as her lips gently brush his jaw. She presses herself to him, breasts against his chest, all satiny skin and deceptively strong arms that lock in place around him, and he's so hard it hurts.

He wants to bury himself in her, sink his teeth into her neck and hear her scream his name, but not like this.

He opens his eyes to find those unfathomable pools of green looking back at him, and he's still staring at her when she drops down onto her knees.

Clint's moment of surprise is all Natasha needs to strip him of his towel, and the realisation that she's about to take him in her mouth is what jolts him enough to put his hands under her arms and drag her back up.

"Jesus Christ!" he snaps, pushing her away from him. Scrambling to wrap the towel back around his waist, Clint grabs Natasha's discarded t-shirt and panties off the floor and thrusts them at her, keeping his eyes firmly on the ground. "Put those on."

Natasha hesitates before taking the clothes from him and clutching them to her chest, and Clint feels a stab of guilt that he was too rough with her. He glances up at her face, but she seems genuinely confused rather than hurt. "I thought…" she begins.

"Yeah, well." Clint pulls a shirt over his head before searching for his boxers. "You thought wrong."

Natasha pauses in putting on her panties to cast a disdainful look at the bulge under his towel. "Doesn't seem wrong to me."

Clint tips his head back, keeping his eyes at the ceiling, the walls, anywhere but her. "Just leave, Natasha."

She does.

* * *

The target Natasha is sent to deal with in Prague is human trafficking scum, so she makes the most of her call girl cover, slitting the man's throat just as she is about to sink down onto his cock and letting him bleed out like a pig. She could have just poisoned his drink, but this one deserved a more elaborate touch.

Clint clambers through the window a few moments later, just as she's zipping up her dress. He hands over her coat without looking, instead squinting over at the corpse on the bed as he lets out a whistle. "Jesus, Tasha."

Most of Clint's kills are clean, impersonal even, but Natasha has seen him wielding knives and snapping necks when the occasion calls for it so he really isn't in a position to judge how she does her work.

They leave the building as lovers would, his hand at the small of her back. It's a warm night and Natasha shrugs off her coat when she slides into the passenger seat of Clint's rental car.

"Keeping the necklace on was a nice touch," Clint remarks as he fastens his seatbelt and starts the engine.

Natasha brushes her fingers over the heavy diamonds at her throat. "Indeed. A pity they're S.H.I.E.L.D's property."

"Next time I get a pay raise I'll buy you one for Christmas."

Yawning, Natasha turns to lean her cheek against the headrest and examines him through half lidded eyes while he watches the road. "Which Christmas, Clint? Yours, or mine?"

* * *

They've been on surveillance duty in Rome for three weeks when the boredom finally gets to him, so that night while off duty Clint goes to a bar and screws a British tourist into a hostel mattress. He drags himself home with a hangover and a hickey the next morning and Natasha gives him one of her trademark _I can't believe I put up with this nonsense _looks before tossing him a packet of painkillers.

He goes to the bar again and this time gets chatting to an American college boy who keeps trailing his fingers up Clint's bicep. Clint downs a shot and thinks, _whatever. _No one could accuse him of not being open-minded.

As blowjobs go it's pretty decent.

He returns to the hotel room he's sharing with Natasha and finds her already asleep, red hair spread across her pillow like a splatter pattern, and wonders if she ever fucks for fun. The answer occurs to his alcohol muddled brain ten seconds later and he feels like a jerk.

Their next weekend off he takes her to see _Swan Lake _and he doesn't get drunk at the bar but he does spend the whole evening glancing at her, watching for her reactions, until Natasha steps on his foot because she has no patience for concerns.

Clint can read Natasha well enough to know she doesn't particularly enjoy sleeping with people for information, but she will if required and he hates that she has to. It's not like he never flirted his way to security access codes, but in this business the burden is definitely unfairly placed on the female agents. And Natasha makes it seem so easy. Clint's objections are ethical, really. Except when they're not.

If she occasionally has a starring role in his fantasies, well, he never claimed to be a good man.

Natasha is sent to babysit Tony Stark the same week he gets posted to New Mexico. It's just the job for Natasha's seduction skills and when some upstart new recruit has the nerve to call her a 'honey plant' Clint nearly breaks the kid's jaw.

The truth is she probably will fuck Tony Stark. He'll give her expensive champagne and put an arm around her waist and call her Natalie like he knows her while she turns the doe eyes on him. It doesn't bother Clint. It _doesn't. _

He grits his teeth, concentrating his attention on fletching his custom arrows.

Clint returns from New Mexico to find Natasha already back at base, and she drags him by the front of his shirt into the empty gym without so much as a hello.

"I've been babysitting an overgrown billionaire who likes to run around in a tin can for a week," she announces, wrapping tape around her knuckles and stripping off her t-shirt so all that's covering her considerable assets is a black sports bra. "I need to hit something."

Clint isn't one to disappoint a lady, so he accepts the tape she holds out to him and climbs between the ropes onto the mat.

They never hold back when they spar. It's straight punches with boxing gloves and bare-knuckle hits, hard and brutal, and it's the most fun Clint has had in months.

Sometimes their sparring has variations. She'll goad him a little too much and his holds will last a little too long, and today she's way easier to get to the ground than she should be.

He pins her wrists to the mat and she gazes up at him long enough for him to become distracted before she slams a knee into his stomach. Natasha rakes her nails across his back and he swears because he knows she needs to see him bleed, just like sometimes he likes to put a hand over her throat just to remind her that no one else can get that close.

It ends as it always does, with him flat on the ground, panting and winded, while she leaves the gym without looking back.

* * *

Spying is a variable profession. Sometimes it is weeks of sitting in a shed listening to wire taps while trying not to freeze to death, and other times it involves checking in to five star hotels and using the company credit card to buy overpriced drinks so that you can keep an eye on the arms dealers negotiating across the foyer.

Natasha, like most spies, prefers the latter.

It's blisteringly hot in Miami and Natasha dabs the sweat from her neck with her towel while she pretends to read a book by the hotel pool. Her large sunglasses provide perfect cover so that it's impossible to tell that she is reading the lips of the man talking into his phone on the opposite side of the courtyard.

The man walks away just as Clint arrives and sets a cocktail beside her.

"I've got it," Natasha whispers as Clint leans over to kiss her cheek. For this mission they are posing as a married couple. "The drop is tonight at ten. Did you get in with Bertolini's son?"

"Yeah." Clint keeps his face close to hers while he crouches down next to her like a devoted husband. "As far as the guy's concerned I'm his new best friend." He runs a finger under his shirt collar and Natasha can see the sweat beading in the hollow of his throat. Clint is one of the exceptions who prefer to be sitting in a chilly shed rather than staking out resorts wearing borrowed designer clothes, and he can barely hide his discomfort.

The pool and surrounding courtyard are nearly deserted, just a few sunbathers on deck chairs over at the far side. Clint whips his shirt over his head and stands there in his navy swimming shorts. "We've got a few hours. I'm going swimming."

The water breaks with a loud splash as he dives in and then emerges, smile spread wide across his face. Clint Barton happy, truly happy, is a beautiful sight to behold.

"C'mon, Sylvia," he shouts, using the name of her cover identity. "The water's great."

"I'll sit this one out," Natasha calls back, opening her book. "Ned Stark just had his head chopped off and things are looking dire."

A splash of water hits her feet and she looks up in mock outrage. Clint is standing chest deep in the pool, arms crossed, with a grin that belies his serious posture. "That's not fair. I haven't read that far yet." He comes up to rest his arms on the edge of the pool, sunlight gleaming on his wet skin. Damn him for tanning so easily when she never could.

"Oh please. I've never seen you read anything that wasn't work related." Natasha sets the book down next to her and settles back into the deckchair. She can feel Clint's eyes sweep over her and can't resist arching her back a little bit. She's nothing if not a performer.

Clint climbs out of the pool and blocks the sun as he stands in front of her, dripping. "Fine. I haven't watched that episode yet." The look on his face says that he is absolutely up to something, and Natasha reminds herself that even though the courtyard is almost empty, she must maintain her cover and not punch him when he acts on his no doubt very stupid idea.

Sure enough, Clint bends over as if to grab the towel draped over the back of her chair, but instead slides one arm behind her back and the other under her knees, scooping her up with no effort at all. She lets out an undignified squeak as Clint tips her in the pool.

Natasha surfaces, spluttering, only to be dunked underwater again as Clint jumps into the pool. "Jason!" she squeals in the voice of Mrs Sylvia Green, lashing out at him. Clint dodges easily and laughs, spraying water at her and getting some distance. Natasha dives after him and he catches her by the wrists, spinning her around and effectively immobilising her arms.

Natasha Romanoff can break out of the grip in a second, but Sylvia Green sure can't. Natasha forces her body to relax against Clint's chest and let herself float. Clint can stand in the deeper water even when she can't touch the bottom with her toes.

She hears Clint's breath hitch and shifts so that she can turn around in his arms. "You're not bored on this trip, _Jason?_"

Clint smiles like he's never killed a man. "Never with you, _Sylvia._"

A woman in a bathrobe and an expensive haircut comes through the door nearest to the pool and Natasha tenses, pressing herself against Clint while she watches to see if the woman could be an enemy agent, but the woman just settles on a nearby deckchair with a magazine.

They have appearances to maintain, so Natasha does not object when Clint's arm comes up to support her knees again, cradling her in the water. The woman with the magazine is out of earshot but she can still see them.

She slaps his shoulder. "Take me back to dry land, sailor."

Clint gives her his best wolf grin. "Yes, ma'am."

She holds on to Clint's shoulders as he carries her back to the shallow end of the pool and gently sets her down.

He snaps the strap of her bikini top and Natasha makes a face at him, but she doesn't let go of his shoulders. Clint smirks like he just played a good prank, but it's a little too sharp and his fingers linger a little too long.

Natasha knows the signs, and she knows _him._

He feels cold under her hands and his fingers brush the curve of her waist, only to pull back. His face falls into the reserved, almost neutral expression perfected by his years of training, but his eyes are burning in a way she notices too often and cannot always ignore. He brings one hand up to her hair instead, running a finger along a wet string of curl. "It's getting long," he says, his knuckles brushing her cheek.

Natasha could kiss him now. There are a few more people milling around the courtyard and it would even help their cover. No one would question the circumstances.

She wants him.

She… wants him.

Well, damn.

Clint is still smiling, even if his breathing has deepened. He's combed his hair to suit his cover identity and in the week they've been here his skin has absorbed the sun like he has been dipped in a pot of honey. Biting her lip, she reaches up to run her fingers through his hair and work it back into the familiar spikes before she realises what she's doing. She freezes, her hand against his face.

He stares at her and it's still all wrong, because this is Jason Green and what she really wants is Hawkeye. The Black Widow has seen Hawkeye covered in mud and dust and first aid bandages and making out in a hotel pool does not happen to them. Natasha places her thumb over his jugular vein and reality comes rushing back in.

She likes him best when there is blood on his face.

Clint swallows and she can feel his pulse quicken under her fingers. "I need to meet Bertolini Junior at the bar in two hours," he murmurs into her ear. His voice has dropped several octaves and if Natasha was not a top secret agent with a kill list as long as her arm it would make her shiver. She knows what he means. Two hours is plenty of time. Time enough to go up to their shared hotel room and change everything.

His lips hover over hers, waiting, and Natasha has trusted him for long enough to know that he won't move until she does. She brings her thumb from his throat to skim across his lower lip, unable or unwilling to move, and she can't breathe.

It's too much.

"I need to stay out here in case the mark comes back early," she whispers back, leaning into him, playing the loving wife. "I'll meet you at the checkpoint later."

Clint drops his head against her shoulder for a moment and she feels the sigh deep in his throat. He climbs out of the pool and she follows, grabbing her towel and wrapping it around her hips. She watches as Clint dries himself off and pulls his shirt back on, his blue eyes dark in the shade of her sun umbrella. He runs a hand through his hair like he's resisting the urge to mess it up again, and bends over to give her a peck on the lips. "See you then, honey."

He flings the towel over his shoulder and whistles the refrain from 'American Pie' as he walks to the foyer doors.

When she's alone in their hotel room Natasha shoves her fingers into her bikini bottoms and thinks, _Fuck._

* * *

The next time they get wet on a mission is in on a rooftop in London, when it rains all week and the tarpaulin they rigged up is not keeping them dry at all.

"It's raining for days on end in London, such a fucking cliché," Clint hears Natasha say next to him as she draws her sleeve across her face. "Can't we just steal the files and go home?"

Clint laughs in disbelief. "You're bored, aren't you?"

Natasha glares at him, water dripping from her hair. "I've been awake for three days without coffee, our target has done nothing but fuck his mistress and all of my clothes are soaked because it hasn't stopped raining since we arrived here. Is this really the conversation you want to be having right now?"

The truth is undeniable. Natasha Romanoff is _whining. _

"If they keep sending me on dead end missions like this I'm going to burn S.H.I.E.L.D to the ground."

Clint allows himself to laugh, because he knows she's joking… mostly. He makes a note to ask Coulson to send Natasha to monitor the UN conference in Vienna just in case, preferably with plenty of opportunities for her to wear those killer heels she loves. A happy Natasha means less bloodshed and much less paperwork.

"And where would that leave me? Burning in the flames?"

Natasha shrugs. "I might spare you, depending on my mood. We could move to Paris and make a living as art thieves."

Clint stares in mock horror. "Does that mean going to museums?"

"Barbarian."

"Snob."

It's an old argument and one he always loses, but at least Natasha is smiling again.

"Here," he says, holding out the side of his jacket. "It's still kinda dry."

Natasha looks at him suspiciously, but then relents and presses against his side, resting her head on his shoulder. He wraps the jacket around her and for a long time there is silence between them, only the soft sound of their breathing. Eventually Clint wraps his other arm around her and she shifts to lean against him more comfortably. He tucks his chin over her head, and she's warm in his arms.

* * *

_He is not himself, and to her it feels like drowning._

_She saves him, and he comes up for air again._

_They are… _

_They are…_

_Unknown._

* * *

It takes a lot of combined effort to convince Fury to let them postpone the aliens-attacked-New York debrief until the next day, but Clint is stuck in S.H.I.E.L.D medical for hours anyway while they examine him. He is released under the condition that he is to be monitored at all times, and no one seems surprised when Natasha volunteers for the job.

Tony Stark sends them a car to drive them to Natasha's apartment and Clint is silent the whole time, staring down at his knuckles as if he has never seen them before.

Natasha knows not to push him. She opens the door to her apartment and he follows her like a lost puppy, barely stopping to take off his boots before falling straight onto her couch. Natasha keeps an eye on his hunched back as she secures the door. "I'm going to get changed," she says lightly, and waits to see him nod.

When she returns to the living room in sweatpants and a t-shirt she finds him still in the same stiff position on the couch, jaw clenched, hands curled into fists.

"Clint?"

He doesn't look up or acknowledge her presence, but his jaw softens and Natasha crosses the room, closing the chasm between them.

She's standing in front of him and is about to reach out when he puts his hands on her waist and rests his forehead against her stomach like he wants to crawl under her ribcage. Natasha doesn't comment, just runs her fingers through his hair because nothing in this world can give him the absolution he craves.

She doesn't know how long they stay like this, him pressed against her torso and her left hand upon his head, the right on his shoulder, both of them breathing in time. Eventually Clint slides off the sofa onto his knees, wrapping his arms around her back, and it's a position Natasha knows, but never from him and never like this. It's something new, this… whatever this is, and Natasha fights the urge to run because she can't leave him now. He's part of her marrow and no amount of red will wipe him out.

Clint exhales, tipping his chin so that his face grazes her. He holds there for a moment and then gently nuzzles her stomach with his nose and forehead, arms clutching her so that her shirt rides up, his eyes closed like he doesn't realize what he's doing. He follows the movement with his lips and Natasha's head falls back, her hand travelling down to cup the back of his neck, not pressing him to her but not letting him go either.

He presses an open-mouthed kiss against her stomach and Natasha shudders. His fingers are splayed against her exposed back and he pauses before touching his lips to her skin, looking up at her. "I could have killed you," he breathes, pupils wide in arousal or terror or both.

"You didn't," Natasha whispers, and it's like a string has been cut as Clint slumps against her, chest heaving. Their world is collapsing but Natasha knows how to rebuild from dust and ashes, so she will let it burn.

Her throat is dry as leans down to kiss him. The angle is awkward and their lips don't quite fit together until finally, Clint is kissing her back.

He moves so that he's leaning back against the couch and Natasha sinks into his lap, wrapping her arms around his neck just as his practically crush her to him. He is everywhere, his lips on her throat and his fingers tangled in her hair.

Without hesitation she pulls her shirt off and feels Clint's calloused fingers unclasp her bra, and his lips and teeth are glorious on her. Natasha rushes to pull down the zipper on his vest, desperate to find his beating heart and the final proof that he is real.

"You sure?" Clint asks.

Natasha can't be sure of many things that happen in her head, but of this she has no doubt. "Yes." She nips his earlobe and hears him hiss, then pulls back and holds his gaze because she needs him to see. "Yes."

Clint nods slowly, his tongue flicking out to wet his lips before giving her a kiss so chaste it should be absurd.

She makes quick work of Clint's belt and fly and pushes his pants down to the knee, curling her fingers around his length and making his whole body jerk.

"Condom," he manages to gasp as she positions herself above him.

"You clean?"

"Yeah."

Natasha trusts him. "Then it isn't a problem," she answers, and doesn't elaborate.

She slides down onto him and feels the leather from his arm guards chafe against her skin as she slowly begins to roll her hips.

"God, Clint," she moans against his mouth. "God."

His hands bruise her thighs and he says her name like a prayer.

* * *

They fall into Natasha's bed eventually. It's covered with heavy blankets, one of her few indulgences since, as she put it, she did not have enough blankets as a child.

Natasha's skin isn't as flawless as Clint thought it was when he found her naked in his room all those years ago. Scars spread across her body like spider's webs and he traces over the faint white lines on her breasts and belly, marvelling as she arches into his touch.

He wants to spend hours, days, weeks, forever just lying here, worshipping every imperfect part of her.

She turns to look up at him as he cups her face, red hair gleaming in the soft light of the bedside lamp. She can out lie a god and be the deadliest weapon he has ever known and Clint is lost to her, as he always was.

"This was fucking inevitable, wasn't it?"

Her lips curve into a smile that is impossible to read. "Probably."

"So what happens now?"

Natasha doesn't answer. She kisses him, though, and it is enough.


End file.
